


Brother in Arms

by trashbinofdestiny



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: F/M, Gladiator AU, Reincarnation AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-02 01:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17878718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashbinofdestiny/pseuds/trashbinofdestiny
Summary: Lucis falls earlier than Ardyn planned, and Ardyn is jilted of his chance at revenge... Until he finds Prince Noctis in the gladiatorial arena, fighting for his life under the eye of the empire. As he gets closer to the prince, taking on a role as the boy's sponsor, Ardyn finds that Noct is harboring a dangerous secret--and that he's not the only one.





	Brother in Arms

Two weeks after the death of King Regis Lucis Caelum laid waste to the unprotected city of Insomnia, a false spring came to Altissia. Flowers hung in thick garlands from lampposts and gondola stations, banners in imperial white draped over windows and lined walkways, and the Emperor's Arena, which had been closed for the training season, opened its gates to an array of fireworks that left smoke drifting in the midmorning sky. 

For Ardyn Izunia, sitting in the emperor's private balcony with a bag of chocolates he couldn't taste and the Scourge pulsing at his temples, it was a waste of time.

"Chin up, old man." Verstael Besithia shifted in his seat, wrapped up in a voluminous coat against the winter chill. "Only you would see winning the war early as a disadvantage."

It was never about the war. Ardyn didn't have to say it, not when Verstael knew the lengths Ardyn was willing to go to tear down the Caelum line with his bare hands. It was like being intercepted in the middle of a game, the board turned over, all hopes of a satisfying victory lost to chaos. With the king and his brat abandoned to the rubble of the Citadel, Ardyn had nothing left to burn.

Below them, a for-hire gladiator stepped out onto the field, raising his sword to the crowd.

"Oh, I like this one," Verstael said. Ardyn rolled his eyes. "They have posters of him in Gralea, you know. My assistant has a little figurine on his desk, made of resin, what do you call them--"

"Unnecessary," Ardyn drawled. He never did understand the appeal of an arena. Even in the bad old days, before he and Somnus started drifting apart, he couldn't see the point of sitting around, watching perfectly healthy warriors skewer themselves on each other's swords. Now, he just wished he could recline his seat. Or turn it around, perhaps.

"Look sharp," Verstael warned, and Ardyn opened an eye. "We have visitors. The Oracle and her brother have been summoned to the box as well, it seems."

"Goodness. I'm simply overcome with delight," Ardyn said, and closed his eyes again. The less he had to do with whatever people called the line of the Oracle these days, the better. He'd had plans for them, certainly, but with the Caelums gone... He tipped his hat over his eyes and crossed his long, lanky legs on the rail of the balcony.

"Oh, no," said a soft, low voice behind him. "No, Ravus, I'd rather--"

"We must," hissed Ravus Nox Fleuret, the youngest captain of the emperor's guard. Ardyn tilted up his hat and twisted round. Ravus was in full uniform, looking sharp and stiff as ever, but the woman standing at his side looked more like she was prepared for a jaunt in the woods than a day at the arena. Her dress was made of a thick, red wool, with a gauzy white undershirt that billowed at the sleeves, and she had a scarf around her neck that...ah. That bore the crest of the Caelum house. A bold choice for a woman in the emperor's private box.

She met his gaze, and even though her eyes were blue, her chin sharper, her cheeks pink with the cold, he could almost see the echo of another's face through hers. Ardyn smiled tersely and turned aside.

"I'm surprised to see you here, Ardyn," she said, and Ardyn felt Verstael straighten at his side. They weren't exactly on first name terms, to be sure. "I thought you hated the arena."

"What would make you say that?" Ardyn asked. He flashed her another smile, and she shifted back a step, brows lowered. She was about nineteen, Ardyn supposed, hurriedly doing the math in his head--still new to her powers, but who knew what the gods whispered in her ear? The spots of color in her cheeks deepened, and she turned away.

"I've shown my face, Ravus," she said. "Tell the emperor I said his arena is perfectly acceptable, and that I was terribly ill and couldn't make it through the opening ceremonies."

Ravus' lips thinned into a frown. "Lunafreya."

"You'll miss the best part, in any case," Verstael rasped, and leaned over to take some of Ardyn's chocolates. "I've taken the liberty of preparing the entertainment for tonight--or part of it, anyways. For you," he said to Ardyn, smiling faintly. "Our guest of honor."

Ardyn flapped a hand at Verstael in a mockery of a regal wave, and tapped his heels on the railing. "Wake me when it starts, then."

"It won't be long," Verstael said, and something in his voice made Ardyn sit up, dropping his feet to the floor. Verstael unwrapped a dark chocolate, picking at the foil with his long nails. "Wait for the signal."

A horn sounded, and the Oracle stepped forward, drawing even with Ardyn's shoulder. She was close enough to touch, the ends of her scarf trailing over Ardyn's arm, but she was staring down at the arena floor, where a number of MTs were dragging a small figure through a yawning gate. The crowd hushed--They were used to prisoners coming out in groups, or walking out on their own, not accompanied by soldiers. 

The MTs scattered, leaving the figure alone in the middle of the arena, and Ardyn's breath left him in one great, shuddering gasp.

"Behold," Verstael said, grinning wide. "The prince of Lucis."

Luna gripped the rail in a white-knuckled hand.

Noctis Lucis Caelum wore the standard red uniform of imperial gladiators, lined with a white stripe to mark his status as a prisoner of war, but his helmet was a thing of beauty. It fitted perfectly over his face, sleek and inhuman, jutting out his jaw and curving behind his ear into a pair of silver antlers. The antlers were sharpened to a point like forks of lightning, and when he turned his head to the sound of the great gates grinding open, he looked less like a young boy and more like a daemon, standing still and silent under the open sky.

The horns blared. Six voretooth crawled out of their holding cells, stalking towards the prince with the wide-eyed, stumbling swagger of starvation. Light glinted off the prince's antlers. His cape swirled at his waist. He hefted his flimsy shortsword in one hand and marked a line in the sand on either side of him, making the creatures snap and cringe. 

"Interesting," Ravus said. Luna was leaning over the railing, and her eyes held something of the desperation in the animals below. "Look at where he drew the line. He's trying to set a boundary."

One of the creatures reached the first line, and the prince ducked out of the way as it leapt. His sword scraped along its side and stuck in its ribs--the prince had to wrench it free, which gave the voretooth behind him enough time to pounce. The prince went down, and Ardyn's seat jostled as Ravus strode over, holding Luna by the shoulder. 

"Why, Lady Lunafreya," Ardyn said. "It's only a game."

"This has never been a game," Luna said. Prince Noctis was trapped under a tangle of snarling, clawing voretooth, nothing but a few flashes of red cloth in the sand. "It's monstrous, and you know it. You can't in good conscience let this continue!"

"No, I cannot," Ardyn said. "Today's game was planned by the emperor himself. It is quite out of my hands." Still, now that Ardyn had a second chance at revenge, he wasn't about to let a pack of beasts usurp him. Ardyn stood, passing Luna and her bewildered brother, and took a steadying breath, drawing on the daemons in his blood--

And stopped, one hand upraised, as his brother emerged from the chaos.

Ardyn knew the fighting style of the Caelums. They were flashy, dramatic, prone to wild reinterpretation and unnecessary twirling. Somnus, however... Somnus was brutal. He had the efficiency and flair of a butcher, and Ardyn knew _that_ particular twist of his wrist, that heavy slide of footwork, that thrust of the blade, better than he knew himself. He watched, dumbstruck, as the masked prince Noctis tore a hole through the pack of beasts, the sound of metal cleaving meat almost drowned out by the roar of the crowd. At last, as the bodies panted blood into the sand at his feet, Noctis stood alone again, bloody and terrible and heaving for breath.

The crowd leapt to its feet, and Noctis' helmet turned to face Ardyn. 

And for the first time since he emerged from the dark of Angelgard, Ardyn Lucis Caelum was afraid.

 

*

 

Beneath the arena, a floor below the barracks where prisoners and indentured fighters lived, Ardyn leaned against a cell door and sucked in a sharp hiss of breath.

"Here you go, chancellor," Verstael said. "The savior of Lucis, as promised."

The boy in the cell before them was hardly what anyone would call a savior. He was no older than fourteen, by the look of the baby fat that still clung to his cheeks, with wiry muscle under the red uniform that hung shapeless and heavy in the damp. He blinked at his onlookers slowly, and raised a hand to touch the back of his head. He winced, and chains rattled in the gloom.

"Did you have to have him shaved?" Ardyn asked. The prince's scalp was nicked and stubbled with the effects of a sub-par attempt with a razor, and his skin was unnaturally flushed. _Fever_ , said a small, untended corner of his mind. And no wonder.

"Lice in the barracks again, your excellency," said the arena guard, standing at a respectful distance. "Can't be too careful. Easy," he said, as Ardyn made to unlatch the cell door. "He was half wild when we dragged him back in. Had to sedate him to get him to calm down. Thank the gods those magic blockers upstairs are on, that's all I can say."

Ardyn could taste the fear in the air. Shackled or not, here lay a scion of the Lucian line, an heir to the magic that Iedolas craved, with only a tower of computers preventing him from setting the empire ablaze. Ardyn sighed and pushed the door open, crossing into the dark, windowless cell of Noct's new home.

The prince of Lucis didn't speak. His gaze drifted to Ardyn, who dropped to a knee in the muck.

"Hello, there," Ardyn said. "Do you know who I am?" 

Noctis narrowed his eyes. The silence stretched out between them, broken only by the prince's hoarse, labored breathing. "Saw you," he said at last. His voice was thick, and his head lolled on his neck when he tried to focus on Ardyn. "Somewhere."

"Really?" Ardyn rubbed at a streak of blood over Noct's temple. 

"Saw you," Noct breathed.

Ardyn ran his hand over the rough stubble that was left of Noct's hair. "Yes, I'm sure you did," he said. His voice was soft, almost gentle, and Noctis closed his eyes, letting his head tilt into Ardyn's hand. 

"Want to go home," he whispered.

There was an uncomfortable cough at his back, and the sound of scuffing boots on stone. Ah, yes. This wouldn't do. A wild mage was much preferable to a homesick teenager, after all. It made the guilt sting less. Ardyn drew away slowly, letting the prince slump against the wall. 

"It'd be a waste to kill him off so soon," he said. "Gladiators have... sponsors, don't they?"

"Patrons," Verstael said. "Why? Do you need a new pet project?"

"You know me," Ardyn said, turning his back on the boy in the cell. "In the end, I'm just a sentimental fool."


End file.
